Quite possibly the scariest moment in the life of a closeted, evangelical, gay teenager is the moment when you realize that the fight is over and the jig is up. It’s scary not because you’ve discovered something new about yourself, but because you’ve given up the one charade that kept you safely hidden within the communities of belonging that have defined your life until that moment. I’m talking here about one’s family, friendship circles and church.
The unfortunate lie behind this paralyzing fear is that once you’ve admitted the truth about your sexuality you have to make a choice to either live a lie or abandon your faith. You can either hold onto all that is familiar in your life or become part of an “outsider” community of people whom you’ve been conditioned to believe are sinful, freakish and depraved and who possess an agenda to destroy the family and the church. It sounds extreme doesn’t it?
It’s very Star Wars-ish in the sense that you’re either on the good side or the dark side of the force. Now, if that sounds a little fantastical, it’s supposed to. This is the way that evangelicals have been whipped into a fearful frenzy by folks on the extreme right who know that the more fear they stir up, the more money these folks will put into the coffers of their organizations. But let’s save that for another blog. I want to focus for a moment on the false dichotomy of this choice that so many young, gay Christians believe they must make. It is at the point of this choice that countless many of my LGBT brothers and sisters have lost themselves in a life-or-death search for belonging.
So what happens when young people are faced with this impossible choice? Well, for gay Christians my age and older (and I’m in my mid-thirties), we’ve typically been given only two options, neither of which have very happy endings.
The first choice, as I mentioned above, is to hunker down, pray like hell for God to change you, and insulate yourself safely from the outside world within the culture of the church. Next you find a nice girl (or boy) to marry; well, one who isn’t that concerned with having much sex, anyway. This option allows you to stay in good standing with the communities that were familiar to you. It is less scary and doesn’t require you to give up much in terms of belonging or reputation. And for many this works pretty well for those first few years of marital bliss. If you just turn off your mind (many churches will help you with this part), suppress the deeper longings in your body and keep up the appearance, you can “fake it until you make it.” The only problem is you really never “make it,” and this way of life flies in the face of everything that Christian community is supposed to embody: Openness, transparency, integrity, truth and accountability.
The other problem is that when those secret desires surface, shame can drive you into some very shadowy places. Places where your secret actions have deadly consequences. Places where what you do can hurt not only yourself but also the people who’ve unwittingly come with you on this journey. Actions that betray your spouse, devastate your children and disappoint your community (Ted Haggard, anyone?). From the countless people I’ve seen in this situation, it’s not a matter of “if” this happens, but rather “when.” It’s a story we’ve seen play out time after time with the same results, and it is heartbreaking.
The second option isn’t any better than the first. For many young gay Christians, the desire for a place to belong leads them far from their families, churches and the friendships that shaped their childhoods. In the search for a place to belong, many young people subconsciously narrow their criteria for “community” to just one facet of who they are as a person: Sexual orientation.
Never mind that your new group of friends wants nothing to do with the Church and pokes fun at your overly developed conscience after failed attempts at virtue. Never mind that the subculture may embrace risky behaviors with reckless abandon. You see, after living a life paralyzed by fear and shame, all that matters is that these people affirm your sexual orientation. They celebrate what your parents grieved. They encourage what your church prohibited. And the sad thing is that in order to fully belong you end up kicking your faith to the curb, shutting down an integral part of yourself and letting your soul grow cold to the idea of a God who doesn’t accept you.
Isn’t there a more life-giving option for a young gay Christian than either turning off your mind and body or shutting down your soul? Isn’t the God reflected in the life of Jesus a God of wholeness rather than brokenness? Didn’t Jesus even say that he came “not to kill and destroy but that they [gay people included] might have life, and have it abundantly”? Neither of the above scenarios seems like an example of abundant life to me.
As you can probably tell, I was never satisfied with either of the more popular options on the table for me as a young, gay Christian. I couldn’t imagine living a lie for the rest of my life just to fit in on the outside. And abandoning my faith seemed as untenable an option as the first. My faith was as much a part of me as my sexual orientation. Neither the denial of my own truth nor denial of my faith was a viable option.
As it turns out, the refusal to take one of these common paths started me on a complicated journey that I am still on today. It is a journey toward belonging; a journey toward an integrated life; a journey that should be offered to all young people who dare to embrace themselves in wholeness with the knowledge that they are not one of God’s mistakes.
To be continued…
This is an eloquent example of life's personal contradictions, and a charge to live authentically. this is a great reminder to be who we are all of the time even when our parts disagree.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully said. I'm sending this to my pastor.
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